Recording drums using drum triggers & live cymbals

[bradweeks80]

Hey all...

First up, i apologise if this has been asked a thousand times before but i couldn't find it anywhere in the DUC.

I've always been one to record drums live (full kit fully miked), anyways i just bought myself a set of ddrum triggers and an Alesis Trigger IO. I plan to use them mostly with BFD and Strike. I've never been a fan of triggered/electric/other cymbals so i'd like to still record them as per normal (2 mics as overheads with real cymbals). My question is how do i record drum triggers with real cymbals without getting the spill from the actual drums in my overheads. I understand that if i use mesh heads i can minimise the spill but there must be some way of eliminating drum spill (almost) completely.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[Naagzh]

Well, filtering out everything below 1 kHz would certainly help. Although when I treat overheads this way on an acoustic kit, some sound from the rest of the kit always remains. There's just no way to completely isolate cymbals when the mic is in the same room as a drum!

But, the question is, if you remove all but the high end, will the small amount of snare, toms, and kick interfere sonically with your BFD triggered sounds. Will they line up, or will they flam? How complicated are your drum parts? And how accurate are the triggers? Are there alot of ghosted notes on the snare? Complex fills? Or are you just slugging out a basic rock beat?

Additionally, you can use a compressor on the overheads with a very quick attack and quick release to subdue the initial transients, further "isolating" drum attack sound from cymbal wash.

Mesh heads could work better. Not sure how they'll handle with your triggers, though. Also, keep in mind that many pros are blending in kick, snare, and tom samples with the recorded, acoustic kit. Sample "enhancement", rather than "replacement", which would require SoundReplacer, Drumagog, Aptrigga, or the patience to add in hits one at a time. So you might try augmenting your drum sound this way. And by recording MIDI triggers, you'll have made this task a bit easier, compared to analyzing your drum tracks with Beat Detective.

[bradweeks80]

Thanks for the reply, Naagzh. I haven't got a particular drum piece i want to try with the triggers. It's more about having another option when recording drums.

Your comments re. blending recorded sounds with the triggered sounds is what i figured i'd have to do but i guess i was hoping for a magical answer. I'll definately play with the options you suggested and see what results i can get.

Once again, thanks for the reply. It's greatly appreciated.